Page 16 of All of Us

With coffee in hand, I headed back out to the barn to start my day. My heart did a little flutter when I got a message from Joe.

JOE

I’m so sore. A massage is needed for everything that aches.

GENTRY

I warned you. The good news is that those muscles will get stronger and hurt less.

JOE

Should have taken you up on that massage.

Did I offer to massage his inner thighs? I think I more implied it would be needed, but I hadn’t offered. On the bright side, he liked the idea of my hands on him, and so did I. This might go up in flames, but I had an idea.

GENTRY

Are you free this evening?

JOE

Yes?!

GENTRY

I have this homemade remedy for sore muscles. I can bring it by.

I thought about the ointment Mrs. Wilson gave us. It was something she had made for all her kids, and she gave the cowboys jars of it because we were always aching. It would help Joe feel better.

GENTRY

I’ll even bring you dinner since you are sore.

It felt like I might have pushed too hard, and my intent seemed painfully obvious. Why not give it a try? Since I wanted to know him better, I was going to chase that. When he didn’t respond immediately, I chastised myself—I had made a mistake.

I spent the next hour checking on the pregnant heifers, and made sure the Waygu were being brushed. As always, Dusty followed me around as I did chores. We were going to move some cattle to another pasture, since there were several hundred head, it would take all of us. The other guys saddled horses, which meant it was time to get Dusty’s tack on.

I loaded up my saddle bags, some granola bars, water, gloves, a multi-tool, and my phone. Before shoving my phone in the bag, I looked at the face.

JOE

Sounds like an offer I shouldn’t refuse. What time should I expect you?

I quickly thought about the remainder of my day. We would get back to the barn around 5:00 p.m. I would like a shower, and need to grab the food, run up to the main house, and ask Mrs. Wilson for a fresh jar of ointment. All of that would take two hours, maybe two and a half.

GENTRY

I’ll be there around 7:30 p.m. We are heading out to move cattle. Talk to you later.

I was excited about stopping by Joe’s cottage. This might be the push I needed in my life to have someone to share moments with, even if he turned out to be only a great friend.

Chapter six

DUSTY

When I set my phone down, I had a tightness in my chest. It surprised me to realize that I missed Joe. We’d been fooling around, which we defined as hand jobs in his living room and a lot of kissing. Things changed the other night when I got to enjoy him sucking me off. The thing was, we had also become good friends, and I found myself spending more and more of my free time with him. The problem was that and when I wasn’t with him, I thought about him. Joe was something special, and my feelings were getting involved in it.

I didn’t want a relationship, but I felt like we might actually be heading toward some sort of situationship. Thinking about him joining DRACO on the road delighted me more than it should have. There were places in the cities I wanted to take him, because he was my friend and I liked spending time with him—of course, there was the fooling around too.